In Bristol, statue of protester "Black Lives Matter" has been removed - 20 Minutes

The statue of a protester of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which replaced that of a slave trader in Bristol, was removed at dawn on Thursday around 24 hours after its installation.

Entitled "A Surge of Power", the sculpture by Marc Quinn was installed on the base where the statue of Edward Colston was located by the artist's teams, without the town hall of Bristol doesn't know. The statue was removed at the request of the town hall.

A statue installed without authorization

Reacting Wednesday to the installation of the work, the mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees had said on Twitter understand that people want to "express themselves", but that the statue installed "without authorization" should be removed.

The large black steel piece represents Jen Reid, a protester who was photographed with her fist raised on the empty plinth of the old statue of Edward Colston, a late 17th century slave trader. This sculpture, which had been controversial for years, had been unbolted and then thrown into the river in early June, during demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter movement after the death in late May of George Floyd, a black American killed by a police officer.

The statue temporarily placed in a museum

These demonstrations were accompanied by a series of degradations of statues of personalities, disputed because of their involvement in the slave trade or racist statements.

Edward Colston got rich in the slave trade. He would have sold 100,000 slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas between 1672 and 1689, before using his fortune to finance the development of Bristol, which has long earned him a reputation as a philanthropist.

The statue of Jen Reid will be placed in a museum in Bristol so that its author can recover it or donate it to the city's collection.

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From the United States to Europe, statues considered symbols of vandalized colonialism

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